Koreatown's workers find a voice.

Los Angeles 

There may be more people of Korean descent in Los Angeles than in any city this side of Seoul. Thousands of people in what is called Koreatown work in abominable conditions. The restaurants in this downtown neighborhood are mostly owned by Koreans, who often hire recent immigrants.

Koreatown's more than 2,000 waitresses, cooks, dishwashers, meatcutters, and busboys typically earn $600 a month for nine-to twelve-hour work days, six days a week--less than half the current hourly minimum wage of $5.75. Workers-compensation insurance or health benefits are rarities. Injuries are commonplace. So are slippery floors, poor ventilation, and employers who verbally abuse and occasionally batter their employees.

In response, a group called Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates has called for a boycott of two of the most popular Korean restaurants in Los Angeles, Cho Sun Galbi and So Gong Dong Soon Tofu Restaurant. The restaurant owners declined to comment.

"The workers don't have any kind of voice," says Paul Lee, an organizer with the six-year-old group. "There's a vacuum of nonenforcement of labor laws. Within this vacuum, you're going to have employers that try to get away with as much as they can."

In such enclave economies as Koreatown, language and cultural barriers prevent employees from knowing their basic labor rights.

"Sometimes I feel I could compare it to being like a slave," says Kathy Chen. For two years in Koreatown restaurants, Chen toiled long hours as a waitress for pay below minimum wage. Fired several months ago after a disagreement with her employer, she sought assistance from the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates. The group managed to secure her back wages and overtime pay by picketing outside the restaurant and threatening a boycott.

Jung-Hee Lee cradles her sleeping toddler while she talks about the abuses she endured as a waitress. Across the knuckles of her right hand are the raised scars from burns she suffered while on the job. "The work environment is very fast-paced," says Lee. "I was pushed to constantly run back and forth. I had to lift really heavy trays of dishes, like thirty or forty pounds."

Currently on a physician-advised leave to recover from on-the-job back injuries, Lee needs to find work again soon because she is her family's primary wage earner. Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates managed to persuade Lee's employer to pay for the medical treatment she needed for her injuries.

Now the group hopes that the restaurant boycotts will put pressure on the industry to shape up.

"The boycotts turn away a lot of potential customers and also send a strong message to the rest of the industry that they need to pay minimum wage and overtime and treat their employees with respect," Paul Lee says.

For more information, contact Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates at 2430 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90057. Or call [phone]. The group's web site is www.concentric.net/~Kiwa.